HeyJaredUnapocalyptic
Karl Schroeder helps you achieve "earned" optimism about the future using a mix of wild science fiction speculation and hard-nosed strategic foresight. Paid subscribers get new serialized fiction, deeper analyses, and more input to the process.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 7
- Latest publication
- Sep 17, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Jul 20, 2026
Latest issues
The Word On The Street 2026 (opens the original)
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Nothing warms a writer’s heart like a good book signing. —Except, maybe, for a book signing and sale combined. Weather permitting, I expect to have my ego thoroughly ballooned next weekend by doing both.The Word On The Street (WOTS) and I have a long history. One year I did a big public panel at the Toronto Convention Centre with my Cecil Workshop pal Cory Doctorow. Another time, I ended the day with enough cash in my pocket to walk over to Bay Bloor Radio and buy myself
100 Years of Stafford Beer (opens the original)
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Last night I attended a meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario at OCAD University in downtown Toronto. There, with foresight practitioners, systems scientists and Stafford Beer’s former business and life-partner, Allenna Leonard, we commemorated Beer and his many achievements. The group was small, but that’s not surprising; rather like the Egyptian Pharaoh Hatshepsut, Beer’s been largely wiped from history, and while his influential and impactful books are still available, they’re generally priced
The Deepening Paradox (Updated) (opens the original)
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Over at Substrate Agnostic, Lukáš Likavčan of Utrecht University writes about the blurring of the line between our planetary ecology and outer space. This is a directly—I’d even say, immediately—relevant topic to you and me. Tell me: how’s your weather been lately? I little hotter than usual? Well, that has everything to do with the interface between our atmosphere and the Solar environment. Humanity is now playing with forces and resources far beyond the local, but we’re largely in denial about
Live-Demoing Limitless Telepresence at 2026 WorldCon (opens the original)
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That’s right, Limitless Telepresence has snagged a booth at WorldCon, and it’s a doozy. In fact, you’ll almost literally trip over it as you come in the main doors of the conference center. LT is in Anaheim to demonstrate to the biggest possible audience of receptive, imaginative minds, one simple fact:The only thing that’s different between their demo setup and a real lunar telepresence operation is that the rovers are here, not there. The roversare ready to go, if a rideshare is available.What
Choice of Weapons (opens the original)
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I’m starting a new novel. This one will be a honker, despite a rumour that the publishing industry wants short books (due to high paper costs, apparently, or maybe the modern readership’s short attention span). I’m looking forward to the deep dive and intense focus needed to get it done.So, where to start? Your approach to long writing will be different than mine, so don’t take what I’m about to say as prescriptive. We’ll have different approaches; In either case, though, how we work is going to
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